After earning his qualifying time on Sunday at the Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon, will three-time U.S. cross country champion Chris Derrick be on the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials starting line next month in Los Angeles?

He told Runner's World that he hopes to compete there, but added, “I can't say for sure yet.”

Derrick was third in Jacksonville in 1:03:41—well under the “B” Olympic trials standard for men, which is 1:05. It was his debut at the half marathon distance and he was one of 17 men and seven women who qualified on Sunday for the trials. Kevin Castille, 43, placed 15th in 1:04:33, becoming the oldest man to make the standard.

If Derrick, who runs for the Bowerman Track Club under coach Jerry Schumacher, decides to make his marathon debut at the Olympic trials, it would be another shakeup to a wide-open men's field—the top three finishers will make the Olympic team. He's been widely considered a contender to make the Rio Games in the 10,000 meters, but will decide whether to take a stab at 26.2 miles after “a couple of key workouts.” Going for the qualifying time in the half marathon seemed like “a relatively low-risk thing” that now offers him racing flexibility in the Olympic year, Derrick said.

Derrick increased his mileage a year ago while training for cross country, but some ailments, including an ankle sprain that later spurred an Achilles injury, disrupted the entire season. By late 2015, however, he was logging runs of more than two hours, including some 24- and 25-milers.

“I was running pretty hard,” he said of the race on Sunday. “I was pressing a little bit early. On the roads, I’m not relaxed yet.” It was a serious race effort, not merely an attempt to qualify, he said. Of winner Jon Grey, Derrick said, “he made a really strong move. If I could have covered it easily, I would have done so.”

Grey, of the Boulder Track Club, ran 1:02:47. Stephanie Dinius, who lives in Massachusetts, won the women's race in 1:13:41. The women's Olympic trials qualifying “B” standard is 1:15.

Jacksonville organizers made a major push to attract athletes with trials prospects to their race. The half marathon was contested on a course that elite athlete coordinator Richard Clark Fannin called “lightning fast, flat as a pancake, with not many turns,” just two weeks before the January 17 trials qualifying deadline. The race promised $300 to any athlete who achieved a qualifying time, plus a first prize of $500.

The event provided a new opportunity for Castille, who thought he qualified for the trials in May with a 1:04:45 at the USA Track & Field Masters Half Marathon Championships, in San Diego. But the course had an elevation drop that made it ineligible for qualifying for the Olympic trials. Although Castille received an official letter welcoming him to the field and briefly appeared on the USATF list of qualifiers, he was subsequently removed when it was determined that the course didn’t meet the criteria.

Castille told Runner’s World after the race on Sunday that “I felt good about my fitness” going into Jacksonville. “The question was, could I manage the moment that my back was against the wall? There’s immense pressure.”

After keeping with a small pack that included Grey, Derrick, and Fernando Cabada (who finished second in 1:03:25) for 5K, Castille “relaxed and regrouped” and was in a second pack reaching 10 miles in 49:20. “You always set yourself for that cushion,” Castille said.

Keely Maguire, a New Hampshire runner who finished fourth, eight seconds behind Dinius, in just her second half marathon, was the fastest woman to get her first trials qualifying time in Jacksonville. Her post-race comments likely echoed those of many who achieved trials standards on Sunday. “I kind of needed one more goal, and this was the goal. It sounded far-fetched at the time, and now it’s not,” she told the Florida Times-Union.

On the men’s side, solidarity and the presence of so many athletes of similar caliber swelled the qualifying ranks. The gap between fifth and 27th place was just 32 seconds. Tim Chichester, of Rochester, New York, was 27th and squeaked under with a 1:04:56. He was looking at the clock and “thinking about all of the work I’d put in, all the miles,” he told the Times-Union. “I was just trying to get to all the guys in front of me and use that to get me through,” he said.

The near misses in Jacksonville included Sara Slattery (1:15:07) and Zoila Gomez (1:15:27), who were fourth place finishers at 2008 trials in the 5,000 meters and the marathon, respectively. Slattery ran a 1:14:22 in San Diego in 2014 but, like Castille, later learned that that course was not accepted by USATF as a trials qualifier.

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